Collector - August 2018 - 33

W
Data breaches
can impact your
entire business,
and for a small
company, that's
a big deal.
By Kim Coghill
COLLECTOR 08.18
hen Facebook founder
and CEO Mark
Zuckerberg testified
before the House
Energy and Commerce
and Senate Commerce committees about
missteps related to his company's infamous
cybersecurity breach, one member of Congress
noticed the social media founder's failure to
acknowledge the potential negative impact the
breach could have on small businesses.
Since U.S. Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y.,
isn't a member of one of the committees that
questioned Zuckerberg, she expressed her
concern in a letter that read: "If small firms'
customer data was compromised, those
companies' brands-through no fault of their
own-may be permanently damaged. Facebook
must be held accountable to the Main Street
small businesses who trusted them."
A quick recap of the Facebook breach:
Cambridge Analytica used an app to
illegitimately access the personal information
of approximately 87 million Facebook users,
including 71 million Americans. Zuckerberg was
called to Washington to testify in reference to
the incident and about the social media giant's
policies and procedures around data security.
Velázquez noted in her letter that most small
businesses do not have the staff or financial
resources to become experts in cybersecurity,
nor do they have the ability to identify whether
their customers were impacted by the Facebook
breach. So, as the ranking member of the
House Committee on Small Business, she
asked Zuckerberg to provide insight as to what
Facebook is doing to educate small businesses
about the breach and what type of analysis
has-or will-be conducted on the social media
giant's policies and systems to ensure this type of
incident doesn't occur in the future.
While Velázquez's questions have yet to be fully
answered, one important lesson we can take away
from the Facebook debacle is to carefully read
privacy policies and terms of use before clicking
"agree" when signing onto any app, social media
channel or website. This is especially true for
small businesses trying to compete in a fast-paced
world that relies heavily on social media and
other high-tech internet applications.
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